


The Thing About Death

by AidanChase



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Anxiety, Death, Gansey's ptsd, Gen, PTSD, Panic Attack, adam is jealous of gansey but not of this, minor gore, pre raven boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 17:28:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4530738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AidanChase/pseuds/AidanChase
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a half a summer of Adam walking ley lines with Gansey. Adam's always had a complex of friendship and envy towards Gansey, but when they come across a carcass on their adventure, Adam realizes he doesn't know Gansey as well as he thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Thing About Death

**Author's Note:**

> Three tragedies prompted me to write this: The first is that I realized I have not yet taken the opportunity to delve into Gansey's PTSD. The second is that I have not tried to write a real fic with Adam Parrish, because he frustrates me on so many levels, and I've been afraid I won't be able to do him justice. The third is that I saw a dead coyote on the way to work today and thought I was going to be sick.
> 
> This fic was born of all these things.

Adam had seen his fair share of dead things. Road kill on the walk to school, a bird brought to the porch by a stray cat, or the small rabbits and squirrels some of the boys in the park thought would be fun to hunt with their compressed-air guns.

So when he and Gansey came across a rabbit that had been mauled by a fox, the gruesome sight of its guts spilled in the dirt, eyes hollowed, and red flesh turned black with rot did not faze him.

Gansey, however, went pale under his summer tan and dropped the dowsing rod. Adam picked it up and couldn't help feeling a little self-satisfied as Gansey retched in the grass nearby. Adam had attended Aglionby for a year now, and while he liked Gansey more than any other student at Aglionby, he couldn't shake the sheer pleasure he felt whenever he saw Gansey's breeding falter, even after spending half the summer being good friends, walking ley lines, and mapping Virginia.

"You alright?" Adam asked. He took more effort to sound concerned instead of smug, and in doing so, let his accent slip.

Gansey didn't answer. He sank into the tall grass and buried his head between his knees. His breaths were quick and shallow.

Now Adam was legitimately concerned. He knew about Gansey's allergy. He'd seen the Epipen, but that was back in the Camaro about three miles east. Even if he somehow got to it before Gansey's heart stopped, he'd never get it back here in time. Adam may have seen his fair share of dead things, but he felt stricken at the possibility of Gansey dying in front of him.

"Gansey!” Adam said and put a hand on Gansey's shoulder.

Gansey jumped away from Adam's hand and scrambled to his feet. He covered his mouth with one hand and ran his other through his hair.

Adam had seen Gansey's charming and collected front slip a few times. The first had been when Gansey told him about Glendower. There had been a hungry gleam in Gansey's eyes, an insatiable desire that Adam had recognized in himself, and so he'd agreed to walk ley lines over the summer between his three jobs and summer homework.

The second time he'd seen Gansey change was just before finals week, when Ronan was failing all his classes and chose to get in a fist fight rather than cram. Gansey had gone on a long and desperate tirade in the parking lot of Monmouth that ended with Ronan shut in his room for an entire weekend. Whether he'd been studying or drinking was unknown to anyone, but the end result was that he passed his classes.

But Adam had never seen this Gansey before. This Gansey seemed to shrink in mass and its accompanying power. It was as if his broad shoulders no longer commanded space, or the watch on his wrist was suddenly too large for his arm. Something had been taken away, and Adam was at a complete loss as to how to find it again.

"Gansey," he tried again, but with more caution than panic, more like the delicate way he held a dowsing rod or stepped into his home after work than the way he walked the halls of Aglionby. "What's wrong?"

Gansey either ignored him or did not hear him. His eyes were unfocused and he'd stopped anxiously scratching his hair and was instead covering his ear.

Adam understood panic, but he tried to approached it logically. There were solutions, there were disarming words and behaviors, or you just waited the situation out and did everything you could to make it to the other side. But he did not know what solutions there were to Gansey's panic. He did not know what it was rooted in, only that it was a response to an old rabbit carcass.

"Gansey," he tried one last time, and slowly Gansey's breathing evened out. Color returned to Gansey's face. His shoulders seemed impressive again. He tweaked his ear one last time and let his hand drop to his side. His smile was breezy and casual, confident and imposing, as if it had never been anything else.

"I'm sorry, Adam. It's been awhile since...." But he didn't finish and Adam did not know Gansey enough to finish it for him.

"Should we call it a day?" Adam asked.

The sun was still hours from setting, but there was no precedent for panic attacks. Adam was not sure what to say to Gansey, if it was polite to ask or ignore. Adam did not do well in places he was not invited into, so until Gansey invited him, he would let it rest.

Gansey checked his watch and then the sun, as if they might disagree with one another. His eyes drifted towards the rabbit but did not quite go all the way to meet it.

"Perhaps going home would be best."

Adam waited while Gansey marked their progress in his journal, but he had a feeling it would be a long time before they came back to explore this vein of the ley line.

The walk to the car and the drive home were completely silent. Adam was used to Gansey being either excited and chatty about everything they found, or thoughtful and quiet about whatever problem they had encountered. Today Gansey was introspective, but his hand did not rest on the gear shift or trail across his lower lip as it so often did. Adam was very aware of the way Gansey's hand strayed to his earlobe and his eyes lost focus on the road while they drove back to Monmouth.

Adam retrieved his bag from the backseat of Gansey's car, unsure if he should head home or if they would continue their summer English assignment together. But Gansey did not begin any goodbyes, so Adam followed Gansey into Monmouth Manufacturing. Once inside, Gansey disappeared into the bathroom and reemerged with two cokes. He tossed one to Adam and popped the other one open for himself. Gansey sat down on his bed, and Adam took the chair by the desk.

Ronan's door opened and he squinted at them through bleary eyes. "You're back early."

"You're up late," Gansey said.

"It's fucking early."

"It's nearly four in the afternoon," Adam said.

"It's. Fucking. Early."

Ronan looked as if he was about to close his door and go back to bed, but his drowsy stare lingered on Gansey for a moment too long, and he left his room. He took Adam's soda from him and began to drink it.

Adam tried to protest, but Gansey waved his hand.

"I'll grab you a new one."

As soon as Gansey was out of earshot, Ronan said, "The fuck happened to him?"

Adam, ever envious of Ronan and Gansey's unspoken bond, said as nonchalantly as he could, "Panic attack," as if he was privy to Gansey’s innermost thoughts and completely understood what had happened today.

Ronan returned Adam's soda to him. "Has he told you why he's looking for undead Welsh kings in Virginia?"

Adam had read the legends Gansey had given him, and even translated a few Latin texts for Gansey. He knew the legend about the favor, and that was why he was in this quest. He had never, for even a moment, believed that Gansey's motivation could be something so simple. He had assumed it was only a boy's game for a rich young man with time on his hands. A treasure hunt, a challenge. But that excuse had never explained the desperation about the quest that Adam saw in Gansey, and though he had tried to pass it off as Gansey's insufferable need to save the world, to make his life matter, Adam was not sure he had ever seen a complete picture of Gansey's motivations.

"I don't believe he has.

If Ronan had any intention to explain, it was cut off by Gansey’s return with a third soda can that Ronan quickly swiped from him.

"You literally just--"

"Chill. I just took a sip and gave it right back."

Adam raised his can to corroborate Ronan's statement. "It's fine, Gansey." He wondered if he should ask Gansey about what had happened on the ley line, but again he balked where he had not yet been invited, so instead he said, "Should we work on The Scarlet Letter?"

"Oh," Gansey said, as if the thought had not occurred to him until that moment. "I suppose we could."

"It's the middle of July," Ronan complained. "And I'm starving. Let's go eat."

"You're starving because you just woke up," Adam said. "Gansey and I ate lunch just a few hours ago."

"Actually, I'm rather famished."

After Adam got over Gansey's use of the word "famished," he remembered that Gansey had up-chucked his lunch, then walked three miles back to the car in the heat. Maybe food was a good idea.

Adam stood and Gansey grabbed his car keys.

"Noah, you coming?" Gansey called to the closed door. There was no answer, and Ronan shoved it open. As much as Ronan demanded his own privacy, he had no regard for Noah's. 

"He's not even here," Ronan said.

So they left without him.

Gansey drove to Nino's, where they ordered their usual half-sausage-half-avocado. Ronan blew straw-wrappers at the both of them while Gansey failed to look more disapproving than amused, and Adam tried very hard not to keep glancing at the new waitress helping the table next to them. Ronan made an inappropriate comment about their Latin teacher, and Gansey finally crumpled into laughter. Adam smiled, and when he breathed out, he felt like he was releasing more than just that breath. There was a weight that left him, a weight he realized had been worry for Gansey.

But Gansey was fine. He was still the Gansey that Adam knew, the Gansey that Adam loved, and the Gansey that Adam resented. He had not changed because of what happened today, but Adam had, just a little. And if Gansey wanted to invite Adam into that space, Adam would approach it a better person than he might have three hours earlier.


End file.
